No Way Out
by Eponymous Rose
Summary: S6 AU. After the events of Recovery One, South finds help in the form of an unexpected ally. Better lucky than good, any day.
1. Chapter 1

Unconsciousness is underrated, York figures. Being out cold is kind of great, because there's basically zero pain and sometimes you have funky dreams and things just really aren't all that complicated: everything's sort of a nice, soothing black, and you can just exist that way for a while and still feel like you've accomplished everything expected of you.

Now, coming _back_ to consciousness? That part sucks.

He's staring up at the sky, waiting for the wavy blur in his vision to resolve into something a little less abstract, when the pain hits. He hisses out a breath, right hand scrabbling ineffectually at his left arm, which feels a bit on fire. Maybe a lot on fire.

Someone grabs his hand, pushing it back to his side, and he twists, trying to kick up at the figure holding him down, because man, he's on _fire_, someone should probably put him out. But his legs apparently each weigh about a billion pounds, which is very inconsiderate of them, and all he manages to do is sort of twitch one of his feet. His own breathing sounds really loud in his ears.

"York," says Delta. He sounds weird, like, audible but also really distant, like he's whispering into a megaphone. "Do not panic. You were seriously wounded."

Beyond the reactive tears in his eyes, York can just make out the blurred figure of a person, someone in armor. Someone leaning over him. His breath catches in his throat, and he says, "Carolina?"

"Jesus _fuck_, you have a one-track mind," South says. "Delta, what am I looking at, here?"

"Two bullet wounds to the upper chest: one punctured the left lung and one passed near the spine. The healing unit had time to repair most of the damage; York is no longer in danger of septicemia. There is some residual swelling near the spinal column that may be restricting motion."

"His fucking arm looks like somebody tried to cut it open."

"Compound fracture of the left ulna," Delta says. "His power armor's control modules had already shorted out when he fell; the added weight caused excessive damage. Painful, but the worst was repaired well before Agent Washington confiscated the healing unit. He is no longer losing blood."

York listens to this laundry list of injuries and decides that whoever they're talking about must be pretty fucked up. His arm hurts. "My arm hurts," he says, in case somebody's listening.

"What the fuck am I supposed to do now?" South says.

Now he can actually make out South's armor, the familiar pink and green. He looks behind her, but her brother's conspicuous in his absence. "Wait," he says. It's getting easier to catch his breath, but he's just ridiculously thirsty, and his voice is strange and hoarse. "Aren't you, like. A wanted fugitive or something? I mean, I'm not judging, I know I am too, but, uh. Should we be hanging out? Is that a thing?" An idea occurs to him. "Have you heard anything about Carolina? I mean, I guess Tex is still out there somewhere, but there's gotta be more of us left."

South is staring down at him, her helmet tilted to one side. Now that he can see a bit more clearly, there's something tense in her stance. One hand sways toward the pistol at her side.

"No," Delta says. "Killing him will not improve your situation. He will be a valuable ally, and for you, allies are in short supply just now."

South says nothing.

"Whoa," York says. "I have no idea what you're talking about, but I'm pretty sure I'm with D on that. No killing. No dying. Deal?"

South crouches down beside him, and he would try to shrink away from her, but, y'know. Billion-pound weights on his legs. "You look the same," she says, at last. Accusingly. She brings her hand up, hesitates, then combs back his hair with her fingers. It should feel weirdly intimate. It doesn't. It's exploratory, rough. Her hand is shaking. "You haven't fucking changed."

And, like, he gets it. He really _gets_ it, just then, for the first time. Because her voice isn't the one he was hoping for, but the sound of it is still a tear in some veil of his memory, and beyond that veil is... is everything. It's stupid conversations around the breakfast table, it's ridiculous acrobatics and swapping advice about how to wash blood out of underarmor, it's quiet nights on alien worlds, staring up at the stars, just sort of existing, just sort of being who they had to be. It's unconsciousness, plain and simple, before the rough, rude awakening.

"South," he says. "Where's your brother?"

Her hand stills in his hair, then draws away. "Dead," she says, shortly. "Wash, too, I think. I shot him in the back and left him to die."

"Oh," says York, softly. He brings up his right hand again, presses the heel of it to his good eye, and just breathes. "D," he says. "Something's wrong with, something's wrong with the bad eye. I can't see."

"I am currently implanted in Agent South," Delta says, and the faraway sound of his voice makes sense then. "I convinced her to return for you. My adaptive subroutines are also localized in your armor, which we had to remove due to excessive damage."

The pain in his arm is fading, finally, and York realizes South's just injected him with something. Presumably an analgesic and not something fatal, although apparently she's taken to murdering Freelancers in cold blood so, y'know. Could go either way. "Why am I alive?" he says. "I mean, how?"

"Because Delta's too fucking smart for his own good," South says.

"I lied," Delta says, simply. "I calculated Agent Texas's odds of survival. I suspected that, if she stayed to ensure you made a full recovery, her odds would decrease sharply. Your wounds were survivable with your healing unit. I told her that you would not survive. I remained with you."

York can feel the rushing weightlessness of the drugs beginning to kick in. "Recovery beacon," he slurs. "They'd-"

"Agent Washington was dispatched to recover me. He removed your healing unit and confiscated me. He intended to destroy your body. I created a holographic illusion of an explosion."

"Delta," York says, shooting for 'scandalized' and probably landing somewhere nearer 'heavily drugged and confused'. "Who taught you to lie so well?" He pauses, trying to drag the stuttering movie-reel of his thoughts back into place. "Wait, no. If Wash implanted you, wouldn't he have at least suspected-?"

"Agent Washington would not implant me," Delta says primly. "Not after his experience with the Epsilon unit."

"Oh. Right," York says, and tries very hard to stop thinking about soda cans with swirly straws.

"I could not confide in Agent Washington, as he was still working for the Director. His loyalties are... confused."

"I was working for the recovery force, too," South says.

"You were pretending to work for the recovery force," Delta corrects her, with a pedantic tone of voice that York's always found weirdly grounding, comforting. "I knew your true ambitions as soon as I implanted. I knew that when the opportunity presented itself, you would attempt to escape with me."

South shrugs. "Little green fucker made me a deal. He wouldn't interfere with my plans, I'd help him with his."

York doesn't want to ask, because he really doesn't want to know. He really- "North and Wash? What happened?"

South's hands clench into fists. "There's some fucking monster out there chasing down A.I.s. Killing Freelancers. Caught up to me and North, and North was, I don't know. Getting more and more reckless. Theta didn't let him sleep anymore, and he was-" She sits back, suddenly, hunching in on herself, pressing both hands to the sides of her helmet. "He wasn't who he used to be. He kept talking about how we didn't matter, how we just had to get Theta to safety, and I guess I, I guess I wasn't ready when this _thing_ attacked us. Maybe I wasn't ready on purpose. Either way, he's dead."

Delta seems to pick up on the quaver in her voice, cuts across it smoothly. "Agent Washington's death was necessary to ensure our survival. And yours, York. I knew you would only live for a matter of days without assistance. By leaving Agent Washington as bait for this unknown attacker, we were able to effect our escape. Without his sacrifice, all of us would surely have been lost."

York thinks about that. Breathes slow, floating on the painkillers, watching the world waver and crumble around him. "I didn't want this, D."

"Nobody fucking _wanted_ this," South says.

Delta, a small green glow at her shoulder, says, "But it is all we have."

York sighs and gives himself over again to the dark.

* * *

After that, things are... well. They are what they are. He heals. He acknowledges that all the decisions, all the calculations make sense. Delta's been living in his head long enough to make cold analytics a lot more palatable than they would've been a few years back.

But he's still human, and the human things _burn_. He's furious at Delta for making those calls without him, for taking the decision from him. He's furious at South for not... for not trying harder, for not being better. He dreams in deep purple and cold gray. He dreams in blue-green. He wakes up tense and shaking, his fingernails cutting bloody half-circle grooves into his palms.

Delta seems determined to stay with South, and York can't really blame him. There's a sort of equilibrium, this way. He's not sure what he'd do if it was just him and Delta again, but on certain dark nights he can take a wild guess.

They find an abandoned house in a shitty little city, just down the street from where York holed up after Freelancer. York indulges in a little breaking and entering to get them money. South monitors comm channels. The arguments, the heavy silences, don't occur nearly as often. They settle into a sort of numb routine, just kind of waiting. Existing.

You know. Being unconscious.

* * *

"It's Maine," South says, one night. She doesn't take her helmet off much, but it's sitting on the table in front of her now, among a handful of scattered empties. They both try not to drink anything stronger than beer, these days. She leans forward, and the scars on her face catch and reflect Delta's light.

"Hm?" York's spinning a bottle on the table, testing the limits of his muffled vision. His head hurts.

"The monster following us. Pretty sure it's Maine."

"Oh," says York. He's aware, in a dim sort of way, that he should probably care more, one way or the other.

South is watching him. "What, no reaction? No stoic glare, no 'let's kill the bastard?'"

He yawns, rubbing at his face. He needs a shave. "South-"

Her brow furrows. "Jesus," she says. "You don't know, do you? You didn't see it happen."

"I'm going to bed, South."

"He's the one who killed Carolina, York."

York sets his bottle down, slow, careful. Thinks maybe he's gonna be sick. "She was," he says, and swallows. "She was listed as KIA, after the crash. I hacked the records. That's all I found."

"What did you think happened to her? Maine went fucking crazy, tore out her A.I., threw her off a cliff." South's expression shutters, and York can recognize a silent rebuke from Delta when he sees it. "Sorry," she says, roughly. "I thought you knew."

"I'm going to bed," York says again.

* * *

That night, he sinks into confused dreams on his ragged mattress, wakes up to see South sitting with her back to the wall, Delta's light playing across her face. This time of night, even a creepy green glow seems comforting.

She hears him stir, looks over at him, and gives a little shrug. He figures maybe that shrug sums up their current situation better than anything else. He returns the shrug like it's a salute, then rolls onto his side and fades into a dreamless sleep for the first time in months. Years.

* * *

He wakes up, says, "Okay," in a soft voice to the dusty apartment, to the morning light creeping through the slats on the busted windows. He gets his legs under him—a little more clumsy than before, but they work, they still work—and springs to his feet with a suddenness that makes South, still slumped against the wall, jolt awake with a yelp.

"What the _fuck_-?"

"Mornin'," he says, grinning at her.

She stares. "Uh."

"D, you online?"

Delta flickers to life beside South. "Of course, York."

"Great. We're gonna need your help on this one. But first, y'know. Breakfast. Maybe coffee? Do we have coffee?" He drags a hand back through his hair, staring blankly at the dilapidated kitchen. "Nah. We don't have coffee. I think we should go get coffee. I've got some cash." He squints at South. "Do you even own clothes that aren't armor?"

"Yeah," South says, pushing to her feet. "I just figured not wearing armor might be a terrible idea, given that we're, you know. Wanted criminals who also happen to be pursued by a heavily armed tech-stealing asshole."

"You make a good point," York says. "However: coffee. Also stealth. Trust me, nobody's gonna give two shits about a couple of busted-up homeless vets who obviously need a caffeine buzz. We'll fit right in."

"I," she says, and pauses. "What the fuck is happening right now?"

"We're happening," York says. "I'm done with waiting. We're gonna see what we can find out. We're gonna break into a Freelancer facility and find their files on Maine, figure out what the hell is after us. And we're gonna see if there's anyone left out there we can trust."

South keeps staring. Delta speaks up first. "That seems ill-advised, York."

"Yeah," York says, cheerfully. "It does."

* * *

The coffee shop's exactly as York remembers it, right down to the cheerful guy behind the counter who winks at him when he jogs up. "Been a while, stranger," he says.

"Eh, you know," says York. "Keeping busy."

"Er," says the barista.

York glances over his shoulder at South. She's wearing a baseball cap, which would be a passable-yet-dorky disguise if it weren't for the fact that she's currently trying to drag it down so it's covering her entire face. Yeah. Real subtle. He elbows her. "_C'mon_."

"What the fuck why are you _fucking talking to people_," she hisses.

"Trust me," he murmurs, and turns back to the barista. "Just a latte for me. And my friend's gonna have, like, something incredibly boring yet still hardcore, right? Triple espresso?"

South glances up at him from beneath the bill of her cap. "Peppermint white chocolate frappuccino," she says, defiantly. "Extra whipped cream."

"Hah," says York, and manages to steer her to a table, garnering only a few weird looks from the other patrons.

"What the _fuck_, York?" she snarls, then lowers her voice with a visible effort. "We can't just fuckin' leave the armor back at the house while we... go drink fucking coffee."

"Peppermint white chocolate frappuccino," York says, and whistles. "Never would've guessed in a million years."

"Fuck you," South says, reflexively. "I'm serious, York."

"So am I. I was sure I was spot-on with the triple espresso thing." He catches the glint in her eyes and grins, holding up a hand. "Hey, relax. D's watching the armor. We all set up the booby traps, remember? If half the block goes up in flame, we'll know someone's breaking into our shitty house to steal our obviously military-grade equipment. Somehow I think we'll be okay."

"I-"

The barista strolls up to their table, two drinks in hand. "These are on me," he says. "I was starting to get worried about you, guy."

York grins. "I seem to bring that out in people. Thanks, man."

"Anytime," he says, and shoots one more curious look at South before heading back to the counter.

When York turns back to South, she's staring at the drinks. "Uh," she says. "Did he leave his number on your napkin?"

"Nah," York says. "Well, once. But this time it's something else." He takes a sip, smoothing out the napkin, committing the digits scrawled on it to memory. "See, that kid was a gearhead in the army, back during the War. And he maybe sorta got sucked into a weird paramilitary project around the same time we were. You get what I'm saying?"

South, to her credit, doesn't overtly stare at the dude so much as glance up at him from under the brim of her cap. "How do you even fucking know that?"

York shrugs, then has to hide another grin when South distractedly pulls the lid off her drink and starts eating the whipped cream by the spoonful. "Unlike some people, I didn't scare the shit out of the entire crew. I had a poker game going. He joined in a couple times. Good kid. Couldn't hold on to a lead for shit, but he had an incredible poker face." He leans forward, picking at the napkin. "Slipped him a note just now. He's got contacts inside, and he's just given me the latest access codes he had for Freelancer command."

South chokes on her drink, and he pats her on the back reassuringly, right up until she glares at him in a way that kinda suggests that if he likes his balls intact he should probably stop. "Fuck," she says.

"Yeah," says York, and takes a long sip of his coffee. "Like I said, I'm done standing still."

* * *

They do have to wait around a little longer while South patches them in to the new comm system. Because, y'know, actually breaking into a Freelancer facility is a terrible plan no matter how you look at it, and if they manage it remotely, that'll greatly reduce their chances of a horrible, painful death. York kills time by repairing his armor, Delta occasionally flickering over to offer helpful suggestions. There's still some tension between them, but York senses that Delta's trying to make amends in his own awkward little way. They talk about it only once, late at night, when South's got her helmet on, listening in on comm chatter.

Delta says, "I think I am beginning to recognize the difference between understanding why something had to be done and... accepting that something had to be done."

"Sure," York says, cursing as he fumbles the screwdriver for the fifteenth time. The screw's gonna be stripped at this rate, and the blind spot in his vision, the fucked-up depth perception, isn't making this any easier. "You can look at something logically, but that doesn't mean you'll be okay with it. Sometimes you just gotta live with it, even if everything inside you's telling you it's wrong."

"Just part of what makes us human?" Delta says.

York holds his breath. The screwdriver slides into place. He grins. "Yeah, D. Something like that."

* * *

Their first break comes while he's out getting groceries. Because, y'know. Food that doesn't come out of a can is generally a big part of planning ambitious operations, and their latest hideout is only four blocks away from the nearest supermarket. When he shoves through the door, a truly ridiculous number of bags hanging from his wrists, he doesn't notice the ashen look on South's face.

He's halfway through unpacking when she comes up behind him and says, "Wash is alive."

He freezes partway through stacking boxes in the cupboards, then turns toward her. She's looking at him with a defiant, go-fuck-yourself glare. Her hands are bunched into fists. "Hell," York says, softly, because he can't think of anything else.

"He was hurt bad," she says. "He's been half-dead all this time, recovering at a hospital, apparently. Just got discharged. I caught a transmission-" She swallows. "He was talking to the Counselor. He sounded... _fuck_." She turns, slamming a fist into the wall, which wouldn't have been a big deal if she'd still been in armor. But she's not wearing armor, and for a moment they both just stare at the blood as it runs between her fingers onto the floor.

* * *

They patch up her hand as best they can, but they're kinda trying to hang onto the drugs they've got, so she dulls the pain with the shitty bottle of gin York's managed to keep on hand for emergencies. She's always been an unexpectedly quiet drunk, and as the night drags on she retreats back into a chair in one corner of the room with the bottle, sitting with her knees drawn up to her chest. York, crosslegged on the floor, keeps tinkering with his armor, Delta floating near him—not quite at his side, not anymore, but close enough to cast his light on York's work.

South speaks up eventually, says, "It would've been easier if," and just sort of trails off. She brings up her bandaged hand, swipes it once across her eyes, takes a long swig from the bottle. "Me and North almost went back for him, you know? Back at the crash site. He was in Medical after they pulled Epsilon, and he'd just woken up when you and Tex attacked. He seemed... he seemed okay. Better. But we thought maybe he'd have a better chance on the ship, maybe we'd have another chance to get him out later. We sort of expected to get shot in the back any second, at that point. And North was... North was worried about Theta. We had to move."

"I know," York says.

"He barely knew me when we met up again," she says, bringing the bottle up to press it to her forehead. "He was different. Y'know? He was always being that dumb kid, back on the ship, like it was easier than being serious. Fucking silly straws and skateboards. And then when I saw him again it was like he just, he just stopped. I think I really fucked him over, York."

York cocks his head to one side, picks critically at a rough soldering job on his armor's chestplate. "I think maybe we all did."

"We all didn't shoot him in the back and leave him to bleed out in the fuckin' dirt."

York looks at her. "No," he says, "we didn't. That one's on you."

"Suck my cock, York," she snarls, then sighs and drops the bottle. It's completely empty, which is a little alarming, and it rolls across the uneven floor until it hits the opposite wall. "Jesus fuck," she says, and rubs her eyes. "_Fuck_."

York waits for the little hitch in her breathing to smooth out, because she probably won't react well to him talking to her while she's crying, and even drunk off her ass with a busted hand he's pretty sure she can beat him to a pulp in approximately no time flat. "Hey," he says, "what say we bust him out of there?"

"He is still an agent of Project Freelancer," Delta says, softly. "He may not want to leave."

"Nah, see, it's just that nobody's given him the option."

South snorts. "He's not gonna be happy to see me. Might take the chance to shoot me in the head."

York smirks. "Yeah, well, then I get D back and we skip off into the sunset together. Fine by me." When she doesn't snap at him, just staring morosely at the wall, he raises his voice. "Seriously, South, I think we gotta go for this."

She squints at him. "You realize," she says, "that just because Wash is alive doesn't mean Carolina isn't still dead at the bottom of that cliff."

"Yeah, I realize that," York says, which is a fucking lie and they both know it. "It's still the right thing to do. There's... there's not a lot of us left. We have to try."

She sighs, resting her head back against her chair. "Yeah," she says. She looks weird in the green half-light, pale and cold, but her jaw is set. "Yeah, we kinda do, don't we?"


	2. Chapter 2

South's hair is long enough these days that it's constantly dragged back into a messy ponytail. The next morning, since she's hungover as fuck and spends a solid hour staring blankly at a pair of scissors, York helps her cut it and watches as she dyes the tips bright pink. She still looks different than she did in Freelancer—new lines around the eyes, new scars—but from the back, just for a second, it's like he can see the ghost of the leaderboard.

York's kept pretty much the same hairstyle, because hey, it's easy, but he shaves off the last of the scraggly beard he's been growing. It seems important, somehow, to be as close to the old days as possible, like they're invoking some ancient memory with a bit of gel and dye.

When he's done, he stares into the mirror for a long time. South, watching from the doorway, says, "Guess I was wrong. You have changed."

He doesn't ask what she means. He's pretty sure he knows.

* * *

Their plan is risky. What else is new?

Delta's gotta be the one to make contact. He'll pretend to be doing this away from South, without her knowledge, looking to come back to the fold, as it were. Wash will either trust him or suspect a trap; if it's the former, he'll come alone. If it's the latter, he'll come alone to get his revenge. Either way, they're fairly sure he won't just call in the cavalry and let Freelancer take care of its own. South grumbles about being the bait, but it's a token complaint at best, given the circumstances.

"If we're walking into a fight," York says, that evening, as they're double- and triple-checking the details of Wash's personal comm frequency, "you've gotta remember the bullet that almost got lodged in my spine. I've never had to compensate for both that _and _the bad eye, South. We get into a fight, I'm not gonna be much use without Delta. I'll just sort of... flail awkwardly and probably fall over."

"I know," South says. She's got a bag full of crackers next to her that she's been slowly and methodically crushing instead of eating.

"You've gotta trust me."

"I _know_, York," she says, her nervous hands stilling. "And I'm not sure I do trust you. Either of you," she adds, with a sidelong glance at Delta. "But at this point, you know what? I don't fucking care. I don't want to die. I don't want to be the only one left. And maybe Delta keeping you alive is the only way forward, y'know?"

York, who'd been expecting more of an argument, says, "Um. Right. Yeah."

* * *

Delta implants in him that evening, and the built-up tension in his shoulders dissipates all at once. "Hello, York," Delta says, soft in his mind, and for a long moment York can only lean against the wall, hugging his arms to his chest, waiting for the images, the fresh memories, to finish washing over him. It's almost shockingly intimate, this secondhand glimpse into South's mind, and he wonders just how much she discovered about him this way.

South's watching him, lips pressed into a thin line, and all he can say when he can speak again is, "I'm sorry about your brother."

Her hand clenches into a fist, like she's seriously considering punching him in the face, and then she relaxes it with a visible effort. "Yeah," she says. "I'm sorry about Carolina."

"Yeah," he echoes, sliding down the wall to sit on the floor, dizzy with relief and a double-dose of remembered grief. "Yeah."

* * *

They make the call that night, on Wash's personal comm frequency. Delta's been rehearsing, practicing his cues. They've gotta get this right.

"Agent Washington," Delta says. "Agent Washington, please respond with double-encrypted protocol three."

They've caught him just at the end of his work day. His voice comes in ragged and disbelieving. "_Delta_?"

"Are we encrypted?"

A hesitation. "Hold on."

South squints at the readouts, then offers a thumbs-up.

"Okay," Wash says. "What the hell is going on, here?"

Delta says, smoothly, "Do you still seek revenge against South for nearly killing you?"

There's harsh breathing on the other end, for a while, and then a shredded little laugh that makes York shiver. "Yeah," Wash says. "You might say that. What's going on?"

"She is unaware of this transmission," Delta says, and man, York's always known he's been a halfway decent liar, but the way he can just sort of say it so calmly while South's sitting _right there_ is kinda chilling, y'know? "I do not believe she is acting rationally. I believe she is attempting to bargain with the... creature following us."

"The Meta," Wash says, automatically.

"Yes," says Delta, as though this isn't entirely new information. "The Meta. I believe she wishes to give me up peacefully in exchange for her life. I do not believe this will end in anything but her death and my destruction."

"So the A.I.'s got a streak of self-preservation," Wash says. Sneers. "Big surprise. You probably got that from hanging out with South for too long."

"Perhaps," Delta says. "But it seems to me that we each have something the other needs, right now. If you were to recover me, I would... not hinder your attempts to get revenge."

Wash is quiet for a long time, thinking about it. "You got coordinates for this obvious trap I'm walking into?"

Delta doesn't bristle at the insinuation, just reads off the coordinates of an alley not far from their base of operations. "Come alone," he adds, when he's finished. "Can you arrive by 1000 tomorrow morning?"

"Oh, I can manage that," Wash says, then pauses. "You were... you were still implanted in York when he died, right?"

York sucks in a breath at the sudden, unexpected wave of emotion that crashes into him from Delta, an echo of grief and fear and sorrow all at once. "Yes," Delta says, blandly.

"Did it hurt? Death by gunshot? Right at the end?"

"Yes," Delta says. His voice is calm. York's hands are shaking. "Very much."

Wash thinks about that. "Good," he says, and signs off.

* * *

They don't get much sleep that night. South rolls over on the couch to look at York, huddled on a ragged old bedroll on the floor. "My head feels weird," she murmurs. "Quiet, without Delta. Kind of empty."

"Yeah," York says, trying and failing to keep the accusatory tone out of his voice. "Funny how that works."

It's not so dark in the room that he can't see her flip him off. He smiles, in spite of himself. She scowls, swinging her legs over the side of the couch."What's so fucking funny?"

"You," York says. "Us. This whole... this whole situation. We're some sort of odd couple, huh? Both pretty decent at personal betrayals, both kinda chasing ghosts, both trying to rescue someone who really didn't sound like he particularly wanted to be rescued, just to prove... something. That we can still do good."

South snorts. "Well, when you put it like that, it's hilarious," she says, deadpan.

York presses the heel of his hand to his forehead, gives a nervous little laugh that's almost a giggle. "What are we _doing_, South?"

She snickers, dragging her fingers back through her newly cut hair. "Being heroes," she says. "I almost feel sorry for anyone we're trying to save."

This time, York does giggle, a nervous, sleep-deprived titter that makes South laugh harder, until they're both cracking up, their mirth echoing weird and distorted through the dark house.

"Thanks," she says, once they're catching their breath. "For not, you know. Running off with Delta as soon as you had the chance."

"I considered it," he says, half-muffled by the pillow he pushed over his face at one point in an attempt to stop the giggling. "D still kinda thinks it's a good plan. But, hey. Wash is alive. Everyone deserves to take advantage of that kind of second chance."

"No matter why you did it," she says, softly. "Thank you."

"Anytime," he says, and is startled to realize he actually means it.

* * *

They get to the rendezvous three hours early, before the sun's risen, just in case. York picks a side street backing onto the alley, well shaded by thick, overgrown trees, and South positions herself in a nearby building carefully selected for its lines of sight. It's not that they don't trust Wash. It's just that... yeah, okay. They don't trust Wash.

The positioning is at least partly for South's own protection, too, York figures. He gets a bit of a chill just thinking about the tone of Wash's voice. Like, are a few dozen missions fighting side-by-side gonna be enough to offset whatever the fuck the guy's been through in the past few years?

"We did not abandon South when we had the chance," Delta tells him, softly, and York has to remind himself that his brain isn't exactly single-occupancy anymore. "That means something."

"Means we're incurable optimists, D."

"I prefer to think of myself as a realist," Delta says, primly.

"Well, there you go," York says, bouncing on the balls of his feet, double-checking his motion trackers, trying to keep himself from getting too drowsy. Should've grabbed coffee. "Turns out reality's pretty optimistic. Hey. We win."

His motion trackers flare up the moment he finishes speaking, and then he sees Wash, just walking down the street toward them. Not exactly strolling—his spine is too tense and his rifle's in his hands and he's wearing a full suit of armor—but he doesn't look especially worried, either. He's also about an hour early.

"Showtime, D," York whispers.

The hologram projectors in York's armor keep shorting out, but he's managed to extend their range so Delta can project himself anywhere within about fifty meters, which places him right in front of Wash.

Wash stumbles to a stop, half-raising his rifle, uncertain. "Delta," he says.

"Hello, Agent Washington," says Delta.

Wash makes a slow half-turn, looks directly at York.

And that's when things kinda stop making sense. Because, like, one second York's standing—his legs work fine these days, they haven't given out under him in weeks—and the next second he's on the ground staring up at the trees and thinking, _Wait, what?_

Something's echoing in his head, something way too loud, alarms and Delta's concerned murmurs and for a second he's kinda convinced he's back at Wyoming's hideout, bleeding out while Tex yells his name. Then the pain focuses in his shoulder, and something Delta's doing with the medical suite in his armor makes the discomfort sharpen, then recede.

Wash is standing above him. He leans down, and the barrel of his rifle makes a little _clink_ against the faceplate of York's helmet. "What," he says, "is happening?"

"_Christ_, Wash," York says between gritted teeth, reaching up to put pressure on the wound in his shoulder. (_Only a graze,_ Delta assures him, and York makes a mental note to tell him not to be that cavalier about bullet wounds in the future.) "Would it have killed you to open with 'hello'?"

"For all I know, possibly," Wash says. His voice is perfectly steady. "What is this?"

York tries to look up without moving his head; not for the first time, he's incredibly grateful that his visor's opaque, so Wash shouldn't be able to catch the direction of his gaze. South has a clear shot from her window. She hasn't taken it. That's... that's good. Probably good. Maybe. "It's a long story. Why don't you stop shooting me and let me stand up, huh?"

In response, Wash presses the barrel of his rifle to York's faceplate again.

"Okay, okay, easy," York says, and after a moment's hesitation, he reaches up and pushes the barrel away. Wash doesn't resist, just takes a step back and resumes his aim as York pushes himself to a sitting position. "Ow," York says, for effect.

"I think you'd better start talking, York. Delta faked your death, didn't he?"

York brightens. "Oh, good. I was worried you thought I was someone else in disguise, and that would be a whole other thing, trying to explain me being alive and, y'know." He trails off, then says, "We're trying to get you out, Wash."

Wash stares.

"I mean, um. We're not doing a great job. Uh. Help me out here, D. We had a whole speech prepared."

"I believe anything I say would be unhelpful at this juncture, York."

"Stop," Wash says, and York freezes when his rifle comes up again. "Stop... doing that."

"Yeah," York says, holding up his hands. "Yeah, I'll stop, I'll stop anything, okay, look at me, stopping. Not even gonna start, that's how stopped I am." He pauses. "Um. Stop doing what?"

"That," Wash says. He waves his rifle for effect. "Acting like nothing's changed. Stop pretending."

York exhales, consciously slows his voice. "Wash. We didn't come back for you when we should've," he says. "We can't fix that. We're trying to do better now."

Wash is standing still, and now York is kind of frustrated by the opaqueness of their helmets. Wash always used to be absolutely hopeless at poker, but now he can't read him at all. "Where the hell is South?" Wash says, finally. "Is she dead?"

"What, you think I killed her and took Delta back? Jesus, Wash."

"No," Wash says, and raises a hand to his helmet. "Just... just stop talking. I'm not going to-"

"_York_," South snarls, so loud in his ear that York flinches. "We've got company!"

York has just enough time to think up some inane quip about laying out the good silverware before things start to _explode_.

The tree to his right bursts into flame, so bright that his visor's filters kick in, pushing everything else into a dim haze. Delta's voice is loud in his ears, instructions in shorthand, _left-hand-now-right-hand-left-leg_ and York rolls to his feet awkwardly, clutching at his shoulder, just in time to see the second grenade bounce into the street.

He moves entirely on instinct, because he _really fucking hates grenades okay_, and that instinct is to clothesline Wash, slam him into the ground, and then the force of the explosion is raining debris down onto them. York is pretty sure he hears Wash scream over the sound of the blast, and then it's over, then they're just lying on the ground as bits of wood and brick rain down around them.

York coughs, pushing away from Wash. "D, what's happening?"

"I have nothing on motion trackers," Delta says. "I believe this is the Meta." He pauses. "Agent Washington is wounded."

York looks down, and it takes him a second to register the bloodied shard of wooden shrapnel impaling Wash's left calf. "Shit. Wash?"

Wash starts to sit up, catches sight of his leg, and sinks back. His helmet taps against the ground, and he says, very softly, "Fuck."

"South," York calls. "South, what do you see?"

"I see fucking nothing," she says, her voice high and panicked. "It's like the fucking grenades came out of the fucking sky."

"The Meta has shown an interest in A.I. units," Delta says. "He will pursue you, York."

"That's reassuring, D. How bad's Wash?"

"He will live," Delta says.

"Good enough," York says, and leans in to tap on Wash's helmet. "C'mon, kid, we gotta get out of here."

Wash shifts his head to the side, then jerks back, and York just has time to look behind him before a hand clamps around his throat, dragging him to his feet.

Gold helmet. White armor. Even as he's scrabbling for a grip on the guy's arm, York manages to rasp, "_Maine_, what the hell-" and then Maine's grip tightens and warnings light up York's HUD as Maine lifts him a good foot off the ground.

"York," Delta says, "I am injecting a sedative directly into your bloodstream. It should help-" And then York's hearing goes a little funny, because his heart's roaring in his ears and his feet are scrambling for the ground and if he could just, if he could just _breathe_ he'd probably be okay. His fingers, scrabbling desperately against Maine's arm, feel really heavy all of a sudden, and he slumps with the weight of trying to hold them up.

Maine jerks as something ricochets off his shields, flinches again, but South's shots aren't getting through, and York tries kicking out, but the damn weights are back on his legs and even his good eye's going blurry, and for a sick second he can only wonder if this is what, if this is how, if _Carolina_-

The grip on his throat relaxes. He falls, and he can hear again, and he can hear Delta telling him to breathe, to just keep breathing, York, you have to breathe.

He rolls onto his side, coughing, and peers up through streaming eyes.

Maine is stumbling away, a knife buried hilt-deep in his back. Wash is standing behind him, balanced on his right leg, his left dragging behind.

Sparks fly from Maine's armor as something shorts out, and then he's moving again, too fast, like, _way too fucking fast_, and he just grabs Wash by the helmet and slams his head three times into the side of a building, so hard that York can see the shards of his shattered visor snapping and falling to the ground.

Wash goes limp almost immediately. Maine is breathing hard, so loud York can barely hear his own choking gasps over the sound. Maine drops Wash, turns back toward York, and for the first time York feels a stab of fear from Delta, real fear.

"You _fucker_," South snarls, and drops onto Maine's back from the damn _rooftop_ with a knife in her hand. She manages to work it into the gap between the high collar of his undersuit and his helmet, plunging it deep into his neck, before he bucks her off with a growl.

She rolls into a crouch, and York realizes she's managed to unhinge the massive knife... rifle... knifle from Maine's back. She brings it to bear a little awkwardly given its weight, but there's a savage grin in her voice. "Who's the monster now, you piece of shit?"

Maine snarls and charges her.

York rolls to his hands and knees, wheezing, and drags himself closer to Wash, who's still crumpled on the ground. His throat burns, but he rasps, "Delta, is he-"

"His medical readouts are erratic due to the damaged helmet," Delta says, "but yes, I believe he is alive."

York moves closer. There's blood pooling under Wash's head. York cringes as another grenade detonates, but he hears South's laugh above the aftershocks, loud and harsh, "That all you got, you _fucker_?"

Wash coughs, shifting, and York clears his throat. "Hey, man, just... just don't move for a second, okay?" He pauses, not sure where to start, then blinks. "Uh. Is it just me, or is he... kinda glowing?"

"He still has the healing unit," Delta says. "If it is functional, he stands a good chance of survival."

"Oh," York says. "Yeah. I forgot about that." He leans forward, brushing away some of the pieces of Wash's shattered visor. "Wash? C'mon, man, we have to get out of here."

Wash coughs again, and York can see now that he's choking on the blood streaming down his face from a deep cut at his hairline. With a muttered curse, he pulls Wash's helmet off entirely, rolls him onto his side and presses a hand to his forehead to stanch the bleeding.

He looks up, attention drawn by a particularly loud curse from South. She's standing alone in the alley, blood dripping from the edge of her stolen weapon. "He's fucking _gone_," she snarls. "He just disappeared. He got away. _Fuck_."

Sirens are sounding, getting closer. York clears his throat, trying to catch her attention. "South. _South_. We gotta go. I can't carry Wash, I'm all, uh, I think D kinda drugged me up."

"The sedative was necessary at the time," Delta says.

"Also, I almost got choked out," he adds, because that detail seems important.

He can _hear_ South rolling her eyes, even through the helmet, as she crouches down beside him. "Always kinda figured you for a guy who liked that stuff."

"_And_ shot."

"Yeah, yeah," South says, and fastens Maine's weapon on her back. "Can we move him?"

"Judging by the impact pattern, his spine is intact," Delta says, and York shudders at his dispassionate tone of voice. "If you apply biofoam to the wound on his head, he should be stable for travel."

"Right," South says, already digging through her emergency kit. "Fuck. He looks older, huh?"

York hadn't really looked, but now, pushing back Wash's hair to let South apply the biofoam, it's difficult not to notice. He's got fine lines at the edges of his eyes, but they're not laugh lines by any stretch of the imagination. New scars. Gray at his temples, and York knows from one particularly memorable birthday party aboard the MoI that Wash isn't anywhere near old enough to have that much gray.

York sighs. "Yeah," he says. "World just keeps spinning, huh?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Note: This is the last chapter of this part of the story, but I will absolutely be posting other stories set in this particular AU—just wanted to set the stage with something relatively self-contained. Thank you for all the encouraging comments. I really, really appreciate them!**

* * *

They manage to drag themselves back home before the authorities arrive on-scene, saving themselves a seriously awkward line of questioning. _Gosh, officer, I have no idea why that tree's on fire. Please ignore the power armor and military-grade weaponry liberally coated with blood. I was just out for a stroll, honest._

Wash gets the couch, because it's actually in better shape than the makeshift mattress York's been sleeping on. He's out cold for most of the day, drugged up and huddled under the green glow of the healing unit. York sits beside him on the floor, ostensibly so his shoulder and bruised-up throat will heal faster, but also because, y'know. The guy kinda shot him last time he was conscious. Probably best to keep those kinds of ambitions contained at the source.

South foregoes the healing unit for now, wrapping her busted ribs and split knuckles and retreating into a corner to clean and polish her new bladed grenade launcher, and to monitor comm channels. Wash hasn't been identified as AWOL yet, which is making them both a little nervous.

"Could be he didn't just come charging in like we thought," York says, drowsily. The healing unit always seems to drain him. "Could be he called for backup."

"Either way, his fucking recovery beacon might've transmitted his location before I disabled it," South says. "We should probably move on once he's stable."

"Yeah," says York, thinking regretfully of the fresh groceries and, well. The way the room looks in the mornings, now that they finally got off their asses and did a little dusting. The smear of hair dye on the wall where South leaned against it. The same damn bit of wood sticking out of the wall that he always stubs his toe on in the middle of the night.

You know. Homey stuff.

Wash stirs, a sort of full-body shiver. York turns toward him, a little cautiously. Hopefully sitting at eye-level is less confrontational than, well. Looming.

Wash's hands clench around the threadbare blanket, and then his eyes open a crack. He squints at York, who stares back nervously.

"Well," he says, in a faint, raspy voice. "I guess that happened."

York smiles, says, "Hey, you," like they've just stumbled off a dropship after a long mission, like they're in the infirmary on the MoI, like they're gonna be back on the training room floor that afternoon. "How're you feeling?"

Wash's gaze flickers to Delta, hovering at York's shoulder. "Confused," he says, and closes his eyes, drawing both hands up to the sides of his head.

"Yeah," York says, "I know the feeling. You done shooting me?"

Wash doesn't open his eyes. "I only meant to graze you. Besides, I saved your life back there."

"Yes, you did. So, hey, you done shooting me?"

Wash sighs, which isn't exactly an answer. "Water?"

"Yeah, man, hang on." York scrambles to his feet, trying to ignore the way South's still hiding in her corner, apparently becoming one with the wallpaper. He returns with a cup of water and crouches down beside Wash, who still has his eyes squeezed shut. "Wash, hey. You okay?"

In response, Wash props himself up, reaching out for the water, and downs it all in one go. "Headache," he mumbles, slumping back against his pillow. "Bad headache."

"You are concussed," Delta says. "The pain will fade."

"If this is a concussion, feels like I've been concussed for years," Wash says, and rolls onto his side. "Ohh no."

York jumps. "What? What is it?"

Wash swallows, hard. "Shouldn't have moved. I think I heard something... slosh. There's nothing in your head that's supposed to slosh, right?"

"You gonna puke?"

"Nausea is common with concussions," Delta says, with maybe a measurable trace of sympathy. York gives him props for putting in the effort.

Wash swallows again. "No, I... I think I'm okay. I think I'll just. Uh. Just lie here. Until the end of time."

York rests a hand reassuringly on his shoulder, but his grin is forced and he feels a weird twist at the pit of his stomach, because this is... this is Wash. This is just Wash, not the strange hard-eyed _asshole_ who'd been on the radio. Not the guy who'd shot him.

But even as he watches, Wash's dramatic grimace fades out into a tight-lipped frown. He says, "South," his voice soft and steady and completely unreadable.

She comes up behind York, hackles raised, making no effort to put herself at Wash's eye-level. "What, Wash? What the fuck do you want?"

Wash exhales. York still has his hand on Wash's shoulder, and he can feel the muscles tense under his fingers, putting the lie to Wash's calm, neutral tone of voice. "Eighteen hours."

South blinks. "What?"

"It was eighteen hours before the recovery team made it to me after you shot me in the back. Eighteen hours is a really long time to choke on your own blood." He shrugs off York's hand, rolling onto his other side so his back's facing them. "I want you to think about that."

South stands in place for a long moment—York can't quite bring himself to meet her eyes—then turns on her heel and stomps out the door, slamming it behind her.

It's quiet in the room, except for Wash's harsh breathing. York nervously rakes a hand back through his hair. "Look," he says.

"I don't want to hear it," Wash says.

"She saved both our asses back there. She could've just left us."

"Wow," Wash says. "Can't imagine what that would've been like."

"Look," says York. "Just... just look, man, I know you have every right to feel betrayed. Not just by South, by all of us. We let you down again and again. We were all so wrapped up in ourselves, in our own problems. You kinda slipped through the cracks. For whatever it's worth, I'm sorry. We're trying to do better."

Wash's shoulders tense, then relax as he exhales. It's a mildly irritated sound. "York, I had a plan. I knew what I was doing. They _trusted_ me, and you guys stomped in and fucked it up."

York stares at the back of Wash's head. "Um," he says. "Wait, what?"

A corner of Wash's mouth twists into a smile. "Epsilon was the memory, York. He was the key. He remembered everything that had been done to the Alpha. And, while he was tearing himself to shreds inside my head, well. I managed to pick up a few details."

York kinda wants to stand up, wants to start pacing. "You knew."

Wash shrugs. "I was going to find a way to put an end to it."

"Put an end to it," York echoes. "That sounds awfully final."

Delta speaks up, sounding subdued. "Based on Agent Washington's recent patterns of reckless behavior, I do not believe he expected to survive his attack on Project Freelancer."

Wash looks away. Doesn't deny it.

York slumps down on the floor so he's sitting with his back to the couch, then tips his head back and stares at the ceiling. "Jesus, Wash."

"Hey. Freelancer didn't exactly have a retirement plan," Wash says. "I just, I don't know. Wanted it to be over."

"Yeah, well," York says. "You don't have to do it alone, this time."

He listens to Wash breathe for a while, counts the cracks in the ceiling. Then Wash says, in a deadpan that's only slightly forced, "Just so you know, this plan already fills me with confidence."

York smiles.

* * *

South comes back that morning, breathing hard, face flushed like she's been jogging. York's got a nervous greeting on his lips, but she just looks at him with a strange expression on her face, opens her mouth as though to say something, then shakes her head. She shoves past him, stomps up to Wash's couch and crouches down, shoving his shoulder none-too-gently to wake him up. Just over York's right shoulder, Delta flares red in warning.

"Hey," she says. "I fucked up. I fucked up big, and I got my brother dead and fucked you over in the bargain, just trying to keep my head above water. You didn't deserve that."

"I never thought I did," Wash says, coldly.

Her jaw tenses; York can see the muscles working. Then she says, "I found something."

York moves closer, going for 'casual stroll' and not 'nervous tiptoe in case of imminent gunfire.' "You found something."

She glances back at him. "You're not the only one with ex-PFL contacts in this city, fucker. Took some digging, but I've got a location. Name that keeps getting dropped in high places."

Wash pushes himself shakily to a sitting position. York notices that he doesn't shrug off South's hand when she automatically reaches out to steady him. "What's the name?"

When South grins, it puts York in mind of a shark. Lots of teeth, and a certain gleeful disregard for the continued existence of the rest of the planet. "Somebody fucked up about a year ago, dropped a name he shouldn't have on a secured frequency. My contact just got through the records today. Remember Florida? Brown-nosing scum-sucking shithead? Turns out he got himself a special assignment, top clearance, to Blood Gulch Outpost Alpha. I'm pretty sure the trail starts there, if we're serious about tearing these fuckers down."

"Alpha," Wash says, and York hears Delta echo the word quietly in his head. "Not exactly being subtle, are they?"

York half-raises his hand. "This from the organization that brought you death in rainbow-colored armor."

"Fair point."

South slumps down on the couch beside Wash; he stiffens but doesn't move away. "I managed to transmit a false recovery beacon signal, buy us some time. So I figure we maybe rest up, finish getting ourselves as unfucked as we can possibly manage, and then we move out. And maybe we stop shooting each other."

York raises his hands. "Hey, man, I never shot anyone."

"Give it time," Wash murmurs, and South snorts a laugh.

* * *

Three days later, they go.

York isn't exactly comfortable trusting South's mysterious source, but they don't really have a choice. Any way forward. Stay conscious, stay sharp, stay moving.

Well. Maybe he insists on stopping for coffee before they leave. Priorities, y'know?

He hams it up as the self-styled leader of their Grand Adventure, talking a mile a minute to fill the awkward silences. And there are a lot of awkward silences. Wash is silent and brooding, and York quietly has Delta monitor any outgoing comm activity from his armor. South is loud and angry, picking fights on the street with anyone who looks at her funny.

But Wash chokes when South orders her peppermint white chocolate frappuccino (extra whipped cream), and she presents him with a go-fuck-yourself glare, and York thinks maybe they're gonna get out of this in one piece after all.

It's a long, long way to Blood Gulch, but at least this time they're not traveling alone.


End file.
